With an ancestry in Wei County (濰縣), Shandong, or Fuyu County (扶餘縣), Jilin, Li was born in Harbin, China to Li Dingyi (李鼎彝), a professor of Chinese, and Chang Kuichen (張桂貞). The entire Li family, except for two children, moved to Taiwan in 1949.
Li participated in the presidential election in 2000 as candidate for the New Party. Li usually takes the role as the political gadlfy, and his campaign was largely symbolic. He took the election as an opportunity to "educate" the people in Taiwan. Both he and his party publicly encouraged people to vote for Soong Chu-yu to the point of stating during the presidential debates that he was not planing to vote for himself and that people should vote for Soong. He strongly supports the idea of "One country, two systems" proposed by Deng Xiaoping. He believes that the unification of China is inevitable and at one point advocated immediate surrender. He thinks that if reunification came earlier, it would be more beneficial for Taiwan. This, in combination with his past as a political dissident and his humorous style, has made him a popular figure among supporters of Chinese reunification.
Since the 2000 presidential election, Li Ao has bitterly spoken against pro-independence Nobel Prize winner Yuan T. Lee, who publicly supported Chen Shui-bian and helped him to be elected. He has also criticized Lee Teng-hui for corruption.
Though more well-known as a historian and essayist, his recent novel Mountaintop Love (《上山．上山．愛》), about a mother and daughter who fall in love with the same man, though several years apart, has solidified Li's status as a serious novelist. His the other novel, Martyrs' Shrine: The Story of the Reform Movement of 1898 in China (北京法源寺), about the beginning and the failure of the Hundred Days' Reform, was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2000.
He is known for generally appearing in public wearing a cardigan sweater and therefore dressing like Fred Rogers. He also has a habit of taking pictures of the audience at public events where the media is present since he believes that it is only fair to take pictures of the people who are taking pictures of him.
Li Ao was credited for his contribution to the democratic movement in Taiwan between 1960s and 1980s. He was the editor-in-chief of the magazine Wenxing(文星) which promoted democracy and personal freedom during 1960s. He was jailed by the Kuomingtang for more than eight years after helping a pro-Taiwan independence political prisoner, Peng Ming-Min to escape to Japan in 1963. Ironically, he was convicted of and jailed for supporting the pro-independence movement in Taiwan, though Li Ao had a long history of being an advocate of reunification.
Throughout the 1970s, Li Ao received much international attention for his imprisonment. He was highlighted by the Amnesty International as one of the three most important political prisoners in Taiwan in 1974.
After his release, Li Ao continued to publish magazines and newspapers, criticizing the government. 96 of his books were banned in Taiwan before 1991. In the 1980s he also sponsored numerous other anti-government magazines.
See also: Politics of Taiwan